The Early Text of the New Testament aims to examine and assess from our earliest extant sources the most primitive state of the New Testament text now known. What sort of changes did scribes make to the text? What is the quality of the text now at our disposal? What can we learn about the nature of textual transmission in the earliest centuries? In addition to exploring the textual and scribal culture of early Christianity, this volume explores the textual evidence for all the sections of the New Testament. It also examines the evidence from the earliest translations of New Testament writings and the citations or allusions to New Testament texts in other early Christian writers.
An invaluable resource for documenting the state of research about the text of the NT before the major fourth-century codices… The volume should be mandatory reading for anyone doing postgraduate study on the Greek NT.
A great addition to the Christian apologist s library and will be monumental to anyone who is seeking to understand textual criticism.
With the ever-growing corpus of scholarship on the text of the New Testament, every so often it is necessary to step back and take an account of what’s out there. The Early Text of the New Testament does just that. Editors Charles Hill and Michael Kruger have assembled a fine team of scholars to produce an excellent snapshot of the ‘state of the New Testament union.’…a very concise summary of the constantly growing body of New Testament scholarship and points the interested reader toward current conclusions in an enlightening, albeit quite scholarly, manner.
This volume is undoubtedly going to be a key reference work on the text of the NT in early Christianity for some time.
The Early Text of the New Testament is an important and unique contribution to these current debates. The individual NT books are examined separately to prevent homogenizing and blurring textual issues in unfortunate and misleading kinds of ways. The second century sources are also examined individually to see the evidence they are able to present collectively. While some of the material in the essays has been discussed elsewhere by these and other scholars, still much of the analysis has been approached in a new and fresh manner. Crucial data regarding textual reliability in the second century is especially to be noted in both essays by the two editors (Hill and Kruger). The twenty-one essays in The Early Text are not the final word about the NT text in the first three centuries, but nonetheless it is an important word that must be considered. Those wishing to engage in this debate must examine closely the detailed data provided in this volume.
Jennifer GuoThe Early Text of the New Testament is a must-read for students and scholars of the NT and particularly for those with interest in the early manuscripts and early citation of the NT texts.
Graduate Fellow of Henry Center for Theological Understanding, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
Jeff CateThe Early Text of the New Testament is an important and unique
contribution to these current debates.